Friday, February 27, 2009

2 DIFFERENT SLEEP DEPRIVATION WORKOUTS

I have been getting some more response regarding the recipes and realized people without a blogger account cannot comment on the blog. If you want to share your recipes with others mothers please email me at jacqgradish@hotmail.com and I will post your recipes or you can sign in http://babybumpfitness.ning.com and post your recipes in the busy mom group, this way everyone will get to share the information.

This is a comment that Denise had emailed to me to post-

Hey Jac

I just wanted to let you know that the pulled pork was yummy, yummy, yummy! Leah helped me sprinkle the spices over the meat and then kept asking me all day "WHAT is that smell?" (I thought it smelled great!). She gobbled it up and so did Jeff. We're going to try your second recipe next week. I liked that I could have the spicy stuff I want, but still have Leah eating the same meal as the entire family (by taking some non-spicy meat out to the middle). I hate having to make her something different because I feel like something spicy.


Thanks,

Denise

Great feedback Denise, thanks. We can really support one another through our journey as parents, please share anything that you may think another mom may find helpful.

Today in busy mom fitness I want to talk about working out while sleep deprived. As a parent I think you have a new sense of "normal" when it comes to the amount of sleep you get. If you are only moderately sleep deprived like one bad night, but you still have you regular "mom" energy level you can still get a great benefit from performing Tabata fat loss circuts. These are the short 4 minute circuts I post with 20 second work 10 second rest intervals, repeating the circut 2 to 3 times. These are intense while you perform them and have a great after burn affect for fat loss. The workouts are short enough that you can manage them with less sleep and intense enough to help increase you growth hormone for a great health benefit.

If you are extremely sleep deprived or feel like you are fighting a virus I suggest performing a joint mobility workout with foam rolling ending with some static stretching. You should feel energized by getting your blood flowing, release some tension and you will not be lowering your immunity by performing intense muscle breakdown work. (As a bit of back ground this is how muscle grows- first by causing micro tears that stress the muscle tissue during your workout and, then repairing it with proper sleep and nutrition) When extremely sleep deprived you do not want to start this breakdown cycle, you want to focus on maintenance and relaxation.

As a busy mom integrating fitness into your life you have to trouble shoot what you need and what you can manage. We have talked about two totally different types of mom workouts that are both beneficial depending on your unpredictable schedule.

I will post examples of each style of workout at http://babybumpfitness.ning.com. So visit and give them a try.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

HOUSE FULL OF GIRLS

I have had a bit of feedback regarding the slow cooker recipes, a couple of people are trying them out. Let me know how it goes.

Our family is ticking along and my husband has just started the FitandBusyDad fitness program written by my friend Chris Lopez. I would highly recommend this for any busy father.

People ask, why don't you just train your husband, well if anyone has tried to directly teach or learn something from your "equal" relationship partner it just causes frustration and a power struggle. It doesn't work and immediately a hierarchy is created around that subject in the household (ours being fitness). Another maybe even more important reason in our house is my husband is surrounded by women, even our dog is a girl and is often dressed in a tiara and bracelet. I realize he needs a like minded male counterpart, and I think he will achieve this by following the FitandBusyDad program.


I had a slower day at the gym yesterday, and a great fit mom workout. I was suffering a lot of muscular tightness last week and could not get any relief. I cut back on sugar in my diet, went for massage therapy 2x, drank more water as well as foam roller every night and stretched. But in all honesty I think the muscular tightness came from emotional stress of dealing with my 3 year old daughter-she was in one of those toddler moods last week and was negative, confrontational and needy about everything. She has woken up on the right side of the bed this week and the house is back to well-status quo- for a busy family.(our new normal)

My busy fit mom workout yesterday- dynamic warmup follow by 2 sets of burpie pullups- I could achieve 5 on my first set and 4 on my second set. I felt a great sense of accomplishment- this is one intense fat burning exercise. Start from a pushup, then spring up to standing, jump up to the pullup bar and perform a chinup, drop back to your feet and get yourself back to a pushup. After this I worked with the cables 2 sets reverse wood chops, cable bentover row, cable chest press while holding my lunge position, cable T pulls to face level for upper back, shoulder rotations. I moved to the floor and did 1 set elevated plank pulling knee to chest, glut/ham raise, Y squat, 2 sets explosive pushups off the BOSU, 1 set warmup cleans, 1 set cleans to my max -(3 lifts at this weight) and static stretch.
After this intense mom workout, I will be taking the day off today and do some foam roller soft tissue recovery.

My baby is 11 months old now and she is eating food and taking a bottle regularly. She and I are sleeping through the night and we have a family routine. Everything is falling into place and when it does I feel my fitness level soars. I know I will have a relapse as soon as one of the kids gets sick (probably next week), but when I can I will take advantage of a "normal" routine and focus on improving my fitness level and complete a workout like the one posted above.

If you are a new, recovering and/or sleep deprived mother a great place to start is with the Furious 5 exercises- they are posted on you tube in the side bar of this blog. This is the perfect start for a busy new mom trying to integrate fitness and exercise into her life. You can sign up to get the workout in written text and also a free starter fat loss workout as well at the top of the blog. Questions? Just ask I am waiting to hear from you.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT MY SLOW COOKER- Busy Mom Recipes


Ok, how do you take care of your children, run your house hold, make money, and eat a healthy- hot family meal every night. Two words--CROCK POT. That's right, I rely on my Slow Cooker to provide a healthy- hot meal for my family. I use the slow cooker about 4 nights a week and we always have left overs for great lunches the next day.

Benefits of a slow cooker

1. Quality on a Budget. You can use a cheaper cut of meat because it will be stewing all day. This means you can take those extra pennies and spend it on a better quality of meat. Eg.- instead of buying a generic prime rib, you can buy a hormone free or organic beef pot roast. That's right- quality on a budget.

2. One Pot Meal- all of the veggies are cooked right into the meal. This is great if you have toddlers, you are basically disguising the vegetables and can avoid a the great vegetable debate at the dinner table.

3. Low Prep Time- I have not spent more than 15 minutes ever preparing a slow cooker meal and typically I spend 5 minutes on the prep. Sad but true, I wake at 5am, feed the baby, make lunches, eat breakfast, prepare a dinner meal in the crock pot for that night and go to work by 6am.

4. Homemade Baby Food- Although my baby is 11 months old, she has NO TEETH. She is active and ready for a hearty meal. Using some little bits of meat, mashed veggies and juices allows her all the nutrients she requires and we are setting her up for great eating habits.

5. No Burning- that's right you cannot burn something in a crock pot, and small inevitable interruptions do not ruin your efforts, just serve out the meal when ever you are ready, or have food at hand for your forever hungry toddler.

There is no TV allowed at meal time and we all sit at the table, this is the only 15 minutes we all spend together each day. We connect as a family over a hot, healthy meal.

I would love to hear your favourite busy mom meals, write in and let me know. Here are 2 of my favourite meals.

J Fit Mom Meal #1
Spicy Pulled Pork

Place a frozen or fresh pork shoulder into your crock pot and spill about 1 tablespoon of olive oil over it.
Add 1/8 cup of water to the pot and sprinkle these dry spices over the pork
1tbsp paprika
2tbsp of ground cummin
1tsp chopped thyme
1 clove garlic or 2tsp dry garlic powder
1 tbsp fresh oregano or 1tsp dried
1tsp cayenne pepper

Cover the crock pot and cook all day. The pork will pull apart when ready. I just pull no spiced pieces from the middle for the kids.
I like to serve this over rice and snow peas. I use my rice cooker and in the last 5minutes of the rice cooking I throw the snow peas on top to steam them.
Other ideas- you can put the pulled pork into a tortilla shell with avocado and veg.

J Fit Mom Meal # 2
Crock Pot Osso Bucco

This is dinner party grade. Add the Veal shank osso bucco and a 2tbsp olive oil to the crock pot. 4 servings

4 veal shanks
2 tbsp butter
1.5 cup red wine
1 beef bullion cube
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 onion
2-4 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
1tbsp fresh parsley
3 sprigs fresh thyme
sprig of oregano if you like it- not mandatory
course salt and pepper to taste a few sprinkles
carrots-chopped and celery chopped

Please write in and share your best Busy Mom meals, we want to hear from you.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

MOM FITNESS Dancing Queen

Every night after dinner my 3 year old asks to be excused from the table and goes to turn on the TV. We have ended this, "NO TV, you can listen to music or play with your toys". My daughter out of her own volition has decided to DANCE, as we have music on anyway during dinner. She is discovering how to move her body, feel the music, amusing herself and is being physically active. She needs this for her own physical development. Childhood obesity is on the rise and most children are not getting any sort of physical activity. Studies have shown children that have a physical outlet are able to concentrate and learn better in a structured environment. So I ask you, why are many schools cutting physical education programs, so the children can be more distracted and learn less? All I know is I cannot rely on others and I have taken it upon myself to make physical activity a part of my daughters life everyday. Check out the video clip of her dancing.

Yesterday I had a great barbell workout and it was the first weight lifting I had done since getting over the flu. I took 1-2 minutes of recovery between exercises. My busy mom fitness Workout- dynamic warmup, barbell full front squats 2 sets, barbell push presses, good mornings, deadlifts 2 sets, Romanian deadlifts 3 sets max weight, lateral band walks, band assisted pullups 2 sets, stretching. I had a client cancel at the gym and had time to do a slower workout and spent more time on my static stretching routine.

Monday, February 9, 2009

BUSY MOM FITNESS- Probiotics and Watch that Toddler

I am finally over my flu after a relapse on Friday. The entire house was healthy for about 3 hours and then my husband and Kasia got a cold, now the baby has a cold and I have been up the past two nights with her. The cycle continues. At times like this when exercise is not an option, nutrition is extra important. We are making sure our daughters are getting all or their fruits and vegetables, eating protein and taking their "drinking yogurt", or probiotic culture. The flu can change the balance of bacteria in your digestive tract, so part or recovery is taking your probiotics. I have been following this rule with my girls and forgot to follow this for myself, until my naturopath reminded to take my probiotics. Worked like a charm.

So I have been wondering why we are passing all of our germs around, we are diligent with hand washing, using tissues, washing toys and keeping the girls separated. Well now I know why, I caught my 3 year old licking the couch, wiping her nose on the dining table and spitting on her toothbrush and "washing" the bathroom counter and sink. Yah, we talk about germs all the time, and she seems to know this is wrong and germ spreading behaviour, but she is 3 and she is going to push the envelope. We have all been run down and she has not been getting much attention, so she thinks, so I guess in her mind she would rather be yelled at than ignored.

My workout- knee to chest, dead bug, glut bridges, cook hip lifts, front plank, ball hamstring curls, heel lifts off stability ball, adductor bridges ball squeeze, full body weight squat, modified pullups, pushups, reverse flies. This is a great workout to help re balance your body after feeling under the weather. It is difficult but not too strenuous to cause a relapse. Lifting weights causes micro tears in your muscle and lowers your immunity.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

BUSY MOM FITNESS-sick


Well Kasia my 3 year old is just getting over the flu. That means last week I was trying to occupy a needy, ill toddler and care for a baby. She was almost recovered but low on energy and had lost some weight. By Friday we were all going stir crazy, so I packed up the girls and headed off to The Clay Room for some baby foot print and toddler hand print keep sakes. I am a month behind on getting the grand parents their Christmas gifts and this was a great way to pass the afternoon and get another busy mom task out of the way. The Clay Room is local to me and it has people of all ages painting pre-made clay pottery, check it out- http://theclayroom.ca/
As for my busy mom fitness I am still suffering a small head cold and do not want to lower my immunity anymore with an intense fat loss workout, so I have been keeping up with my much needed post partum abdominal work and some low back stretches.

At time when the whole house is sick it is easy to fall off the rails in a bad way. My daughter with the stomach flu has seen an opportunity to manipulate us(she thinks) to get the type carb only diet she wants. We let her get away with this for a few meals when she started eating again. We have had many discussions this is not suitable in our house, so that means long drawn out meals until she is done her veggies and meat.

I went down hard, after I wrote this post I went to bed and couldn't sleep, only to go running to the bathroom with the flu. Full blown, I felt like garbage. Wow the family dynamics changed at that moment. I was bedridden and my husband has been staying home with the girls and making the meals. He's a star, he is not 100% either but has pulled through.
 
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